


Hardison Screwed Up, They All Screwed Up—The Day After Nate Left Job

by crayonbreakygal



Series: The After Nate Left Jobs [3]
Category: Leverage
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-26
Updated: 2016-05-26
Packaged: 2018-07-10 07:22:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6972700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crayonbreakygal/pseuds/crayonbreakygal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hardison was always there to tell them how he felt about the job, the con, the situation, the food, something.  Takes place right after The Maltese Falcon Job, season two.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hardison Screwed Up, They All Screwed Up—The Day After Nate Left Job

**Author's Note:**

> Now on to Hardison's feelings as seen through Sophie's POV.

Continuation of Sophie’s thoughts the day after Nate was shot, right after The Maltese Falcon Job, season two.

Hardison Screwed Up, They All Screwed Up—The Day After Nate Left Job

Hardison banged on the keyboard, not once, not twice, but three times, hard enough to break the thing.  Sophie jumped at the first thump, turned at the second, and sighed at the third.  He was mad.  So was she.

They all were mad at Nate.  He’d gone out and made a deal behind their backs, to save their backs from Sterling.  Now Nate was lying in a hospital bed, suffering from a gunshot wound to the abdomen.  It could have been fatal.  It could have been.

Eliot was making them yet another meal as Sophie sat and looked at their newly established boards.  It was all Nate.  What happened, how it happened, why it went wrong, what to do in the meantime to keep track of Nate, wherever he might end up.  All of this fell onto Hardison’s shoulders.  It was his responsibility.  Maybe it was too much for him this time?

Parker sat on the couch, upside down, looking at the boards for more than an hour now, twisting here and there like if she looked, physically looked at them differently, then she’d come to a solution.  In her arms was her bunny, wrapped in one of Nate’s shirts.  That smell, Parker said.  She wanted to make sure she could still smell Nate.  Hence, the bunny wrapped.

Sophie grabbed another orange soda and placed it by Hardison’s side. 

“Need any help?”

“Nope,” was the short answer from Hardison.  He never gave short answers.

“If you would like me to help you organize.”

“I got it,” he almost yelled.

Parker twisted upright and looked.  Sophie waved her away.  She needed to get to the bottom of this so Hardison could concentrate.  Sure, he was angry.  This was more than anger. Parker and her bunny made their way into the kitchen quietly.  Hardison didn’t even notice.  He always noticed when Parker moved from room to room.  So Sophie was right.  Something was clearly wrong.

“If you’re going to keep staring at me, I think I might just call it a night, or day, or whatever time it is.”

So he was going to bail on her?  Hardison was always there to tell them how he felt about the job, the con, the situation, the food, something.  Sophie wondered if those were his real feelings or he just wanted to be acknowledged.  She doubted that growing up there was much of that in his household.  His Nana supposedly had many kids to care for.  Hardison was just one of many.  Although she could sense from him that he would forever be grateful to have that woman in his life.

“We need to talk,” Sophie started.

“About? I have work to do. Don’t you?”

Defensive.  Almost combative. Was this about her, Nate, Parker, Eliot or something else?

“Want to clue me in on what is bothering you?”

Sophie sat directly to his left, not too close, but close enough that the two in the kitchen would not hear them, unless Hardison wanted them to hear.

“Why would you care?”

So, about her, at least the opening shot was.

“I do care.  That’s why I came back.  Alec, I’m sorry I wasn’t here earlier.  If I’d known.”

“If you’d known.  That’s just great.  If you’d known, Nate wouldn’t have gone off the rails.  If you’d known, Parker wouldn’t have been hurt by that shyster.  If you’d known, Eliot would have been able to stop all this from happening.  Let’s just stop the if you’d known.  I know where this is heading.”

The bitterness and anger was just pouring off Hardison in waves. 

Sophie pulled at her hair, trying to figure out how to apologize to Hardison.  They needed to work together to save Nate. Not fight.  Fighting would not help the situation at all.

“If I would have stayed, would it have made a difference?”

“I, I really don’t know the answer to that question.”

“Alec, I didn’t leave because I wanted you to suffer.  I left because I was suffering.  I still don’t know exactly who I am.  Sometimes I don’t even remember my own name, what accent I should use, and where I live.  Well, not that I have a place to live in Boston at the moment.  That’s beside the point.”

He turned to look her in the eyes.  She really didn’t want to do that.  His puppy dog eyes could get the best grifter to break down.  She’d already broken down with Parker, and then Eliot that morning.  She certainly didn’t want to do it with him.  She might not stop.

“I’m not sure what to say, Hardison.  It happened.  I never intended for Nate to do what he did.”

“No one did.  Geez, this is so messed up.  I don’t know how to solve this.”

Sophie took his shaking hands in hers.  He must not have slept since the day before. 

“One day at a time, one moment at a time.  There’s nothing you can do right now other than make sure he’s alive.”

“It’s my fault,” Hardison looked down at their joined hands.

“Your fault?  That Nate was shot?”

He jerked his hands away, looked at the screens that were scrolling past.

“The Mayor.  I walked away from him.  I thought that Parker was in danger from Tara.  I screwed up.  He must have called Kadjic.  It’s my fault.”

“What?” came from the area of the dining room.

Sophie glanced around to see Eliot coming from the kitchen, a cup of tea in his hands.

“You left him alone?  Do you realize what you did?”

Sophie didn’t know what went on between them while she was gone.  Was there something else going on that she didn’t know about?  Was their buddy relationship severed after she left?

“I couldn’t get Parker on the line.  The signal, it was dead.  Jesus, Eliot.  Tara had been acting strange.”

“I was fine,” Parker said behind Eliot, looking sad with her Nate wrapped bunny.

“How did I know that?”

“He called Kadjic.”

“Don’t you think I know I screwed up?”

“No, you didn’t.  You thought he was tied up,” Parker added, coming closer to Hardison.

“We were blown.  If Sophie hadn’t come in, guns a blazin’ in a manner of speaking, both of us would have been dead.”

“I stopped the boat.”

“He had a gun to Nate’s head.”

“Tara called Sophie.  I almost dropped her off the side of the building.”

All three stopped and looked at her.

“Really?”

“Seriously?”

“Oh, well, Parker, um, was that necessary?” Sophie continued, hoping to finish her conversation with Hardison, alone.

“Yeah, kinda.  She could have at least told us.  I mean us, not Nate.  He would have been pissed.”

“So, we all screwed this up.  Can we all just say that Nate screwed up the worst and leave it at that?” Sophie asked the group.

“Well, I let him go on that boat,” Eliot added.

“Yeah, I didn’t trust Tara.”

“I let the mayor escape.”

“I left.”

They all looked at each other.  Eliot and Parker turned back to the kitchen.

“I’m makin’ muffins,” Eliot called as he turned the corner of the counter.

“I’m taste testing.”

“Wash your hands.”

Hardison turned back to look at her.

“I’m not mad at you, Sophie.  Really.  Maybe a little at Nate.  No, a lot.  You came when the bat signal went up.”

“The bat signal?”

“You are seriously deprived, you know that?”

“Next time take a page from Eliot’s book and knock the guy out.”

Hardison laughed at that, his big smile appearing for the first time since this all happened.

“He’s OK.”

“Well, of course he is.  Not going to let a little gunshot take him down.”

“No, I mean, I just checked on him.  Vitals are good.  Cute nurse attending him.”

“Hardison,” Sophie glared at him.

“OK, I’ll get her transferred.  Hey, what if I get him the meanest nurse on the schedule?”

“Serve him right.”

He gripped her hand again, squeezed, then let go to start typing again.

“I will, you know.  Gotta make him suffer.”

“I think a gunshot is probably enough suffering for now.”

“Bet he has a bruise from that slap.”

Sophie smiled a little.  That was just reactionary on her part.  The slap was intended to remind Nate that he screwed up and that she was there to fix things for him, yet again.  And the fact that he told her that he needed her and then made a deal with the devil himself.  She didn’t need saving.  He did.

“You ready to break him out?”

“Oh yeah.  Oh yeah.  I wanna see his face when we do.”

Sophie sighed, watching the screens scroll by.  Nate’s face was all over them.  It almost hurt to watch the scene before her.  She put her head down on the table, willing the tears that were forming to go away.  She felt a large hand on the back of her head, massaging her neck gently.

“Hey.  We got this.”

“We do.”

She lifted her head to look him directly in the eyes again.  His unshed tears matched her own.

“You gonna kick his ass, aren’t you?”

Leave it to Hardison to joke to lighten the mood.

“Possibly.”

He pulled her into a hug.  He didn’t smell like Nate at all.  He smelled like he probably needed a shower, a little like Parker (what?), popcorn, and orange soda.  Always orange soda.

“Go get some sleep, Hardison.  And a shower.”

“I should go roll around on Nate’s bed.  Everyone else has.”

Sophie started to laugh.  “Go.”

Hardison left his files open.  She didn’t want to fiddle with anything on them, just stare at Nate, like she could will him through the screens.  He had to be OK.  He was stubborn.  He would be.  They’d break him out, she’d tell him how she really felt about him and all would be well.

Who was she kidding?


End file.
